Back to DamnThatsTheSpot's Profile DamnThatsTheSpot's Profile

First of all, I've never written one of these before so bear with me. Keeping this as spoiler-free as possible but if I fuck up something - whoops! Sorry about that. It's a 3+-year old story that you can legally read for free anyway.

Second: As people might be aware this was an adaptation of the 7th story arc of Fate/Grand Order Part 1 plotline. As such this review will focus on the anime's worth as both an attempt to convey the source material and as a stand-alone series overall.

With that out of the way as far as overall plot goes this is fairly simple. The ... show spends some time trying to provide explainations to the casual viewer, unfamiliar with the source material to make it understandable enough and it does a passable job at this. As far as the original beats of the game goes it's not uncommon for anime-onlies to not feel immersed and put off, considering they've skipped straight into the climax of Part 1 but that's not really a fault in the show itself so much as the producers choosing to jump straight into this - since at it's core this anime is fanservice for the players who voted this chapter as the one they most wanted to see animated.

As far as characters goes Babylonia does a mostly good job giving development to it's fairly big cast in a way that does justice to their portrayal in the original. Whether it be Merlin's charming playfulness or apparent lack of proper human emotions, Ana's stoic and reserved distrust, which slowly melts away as the show progresses, Ushiwaka's freedom and at the same time ferocity, Leonidas' hilarity and heroism, etc. Some characters ended up being given even greater attention than the game. Though the opposite is also true

The star of this anime is without a doubt Gilgamesh. Seeing him in from the late parts of his life as the Wise King of Uruk is an amaizng experience. One that people will definitely miss out on if they haven't seen the older Fate works so they can properly compare and contrast his behaviour there and here.

That said, there are definitely flaws in the execution as well. Due to time constraints of the very peculiar 21 episode count of the series a lot of character establishing moments or just nice scenes in general got omitted from the anime. As this happens in pretty much all adaptations be it manga, LN or otherwise, it comes as no surprise and is not gamebreaking in any way (even if it's very unfortunate), however in my personal opinion two of the scenes omitted have great importance to the overall themes and their lack in the adaptation is a definite loss. The first one was supposed to be in the first episode even - a foreboding dream between the series' main anatagonist and one of the main characters - Mash. The other is a spoiler so i'll spare you that much. Overall they could have done a way better job

As far as the main characters go - Ritsuka cannot be called a character at this point of the original game as there he was just a self insert for the player. The anime tries to give him some personality via original scenes or giving him some minor lines of other characters and generally makes him better than just a walking nothing but overall he's still just an average, regular kid. Still, he doesn't actually detriment the series in any spectacular form since he is at the end of the day simply an observer, who happened into this by chance. The spotlight is given to the other characters of the chapter and not him so if even if you find him insufferable, if you like the rest you'll still come out enjoying this anime.

As for Mash - she pretty much takes a back seat in here. Her main development in Part 1 comes from the 6th chapter Camelot and the 8th and final epilogue Solomon - both of which are getting adapatiosn. Depending on your taste you'll find her bland or cute in this but not really detrimental once again in my personal opinion.

As far as the soundtrack goes this anime is pretty much the best of both worlds. Gives you tons of remixes of the titular tracks of the game's music, while going with a brilliant and fresh new OST. I personally couldn't be happier with this decision. The latter two ending themes by Millet in the show's second cour are in my opinion some of, if not the best ending songs in any Fate anime so far.

As for the generall sfx, this is a divisive front. Some people love them, others despise them. Imo, don't listen to me on this and just decide for yourself.

Animation is terrific throughout. Lots of subtle nods were added to the characters even in casual conversation and actions scenes look truly phenomenal. As far as choreography goes this show probably has more memorable fight scenes than any Ufotable Fate adaptations so far, in my opinion, even if their use of CGI is inferior. Of course this might change with HF3 coming out a week from me writing this, but we'll see.


Overall this was definitely an enjoyable ride and worth your time for the productions values alone even if you can't get invested in the characters or story. If given more episodes, this could have been pretty much the best adaptation of any Fate material so far, but alas - it's flaws bring it down to "pretty good eitherway" instead.